The Witches’ Kitchen

by Cecelia Holland

  He handed the flagon on, his stomach burning, and his head expansive, and looked out toward Bluetooth’s dark massed ships; some lights glowed here and there on that line, but it seemed quiet. Then he heard, out there, a sharp yell.

  “They’ve seen us,” he said, wheeling, and with Conn he grabbed hold of the dragonfly’s gunwale and heaved it down the stony beach into the water. Sweyn stayed behind a moment, bellowing a sudden volley of orders. A moment later he bounded into the ship, and they pulled oars and swung the ship around and headed toward the end of Bluetooth’s line.

  The sky was turning gray, but it was still too dark to see much. On Bluetooth’s line, a dark uneven cluttered wall against the whitening sky, bellows of warning went up, and feet clattered. A horn blasted. Raef leaned into the stroke of his oars and looking back past the dragonfly’s stern saw Sweyn’s ships, one after another, break out of the line and row after him.

  He curled himself into each stroke, hearing Conn behind him groaning with effort, and then Sweyn shouted, “Up oars!” He cocked his oars up out of the way, and the dragonfly, running along over shallows, slid in past the outcurving stempost of a big dragon, the end of Bluetooth’s line.

  “Go! Go!”

  Seizing the sword he barreled up, following Conn, bounding first onto the dragonfly’s gunwale and from there up onto the bigger ship. Vaulting into that hull he stood a moment alone, Conn lunging on ahead of them, Sweyn still scrambling up behind, the space of the enemy ship around him, and then from the dragon beyond came a rush of men and filled the space up and he was slashing and stroking at them, his teeth clenched, trying to keep his feet.

  He lunged forward; if he could get to the other side of the ship, he could use it for some cover, but the King’s men swarmed at him and drove him back, away from Conn. The ship rolled under his feet. He tried to stand fast but three men came at him, two in this ship and now one on the next, leaning over the gunwale to attack him, and he had to leap backward. He had to get to Conn. Conn was out there somewhere. The man in the next ship heaved up his axe, chopping at Raef’s head, the blade too high, and Raef saw the gap under and struck. That man pitched backward, stumbling into somebody behind him, and they both went off into the water.

  Directly before him two men ran at him together and he flung his sword up between them, trying to hold off their blades, their swords came at him from everywhere, up and down, and both at once. His eyes lost them, they were a glaze of light in the air around him, the sword blades kissing with a sharp shriek of metal, somehow he was holding them off, but soon—a blade hissed by his face and struck fast in the gunwale. That man wobbled, wrenching at the blade, and Raef lifted his foot, still soaking wet in the bear-fur boot, and kicked him over the side of the ship.

  Another man came at him with a shriek and a whirl of his sword, but one was simpler than two, and Raef swept him aside. Then he charged forward, into the hole left behind, and going forward like that, and swinging and jabbing with his sword; he cleared half the ship, coming up gasping for breath beside the block for the mast.

  Over the shoulder of a falling man he saw Conn’s wild dark head. He bellowed to him. A man with an axe reared up before him, toe to toe with him, striking back and forth with his curved blade, and Raef ducked, and the axe swung hissing over his head. Raef bulled forward and shoulder-butted the man off the ship.

  A horn blew, somewhere. Raef rushed on, up into the front of the ship, where Conn stood, breathing hard, his sword dangling in his hand with blood dripping off the tip. Sweyn, beyond him, shouted, “Hold!” They were facing the next ship in line, still lashed to this one, where Bluetooth’s men packed together. But Bluetooth’s men had drawn back.

  Raef moved his sword from hand to hand. The sun was breaking through a thin mist, the sky already bright blue overhead, the light steadily strengthening. Raef glanced behind them.

  They had opened up the end of Bluetooth’s line, and the first few ships of Sweyn’s fleet had burst through. Now everybody had stopped, was waiting, which puzzled him. He gripped his sword. “Let’s go.”

  “No, wait—look.” Sweyn put one arm out. “Hold on.”

  Raef looked; now, coming in through the pack of Bluetooth’s men, forcing a way up toward him and Sweyn, was Skull-Grim, Bluetooth’s berserker.

  Conn said, “I want him.”

  Sweyn said swiftly, “He’s not killable. I’ve heard somebody hit him on the head once with an axe and the axe broke.”

  “I’ll get him,” Conn said. He took his sword in both hands, his eyes fierce.

  “Sweyn Haraldsson!” Skull-Grim finally elbowed his way out of the massed army, and stood by himself, between Bluetooth’s men and Sweyn’s. “We need you to stop fighting for a while. Something’s happened.”

  Conn groaned. “It’s a trick. Tell him I’ll fight him. For everything, him and me.”

  Sweyn gave him a shove, still facing Skull-Grim, and aimed his voice across space between them. “Yes, I’m beating you, is what’s happening. Do you want to give up?”

  The pack behind Skull-Grim let out a howl that hurt Raef’s ears; they shook their swords in the air, furious. The giant turned slightly, looking over his shoulder, and swung back to face Sweyn again, grinning. “No, we don’t give up. Just wait until midmorning. By then we’ll have this worked out.” The big man shrugged one huge lumpy shoulder. “No need for anybody else to die, if we can settle this in another way.”

  “What other way?” Sweyn said quickly.

  Skull-Grim shrugged again. “We all here have to talk it over.”

  Sweyn frowned. Raef said, astonished, “Do we let them do that?”

  “It’s a trick,” Conn said, between his teeth.

  Sweyn faced Skull-Grim again. Raef watched him keenly, seeing him cloudy with doubt, thinking, but then he gathered himself up straight, and his face cleared. He said, “If this is a trick, and it is Bluetooth we’re talking about, so it could be, it’s be a vile one. But I am not Bluetooth, and I will give you an honorable truce. Go ahead. We’ll wait.” He took a step back and sat down on a rowing bench behind him, his sword across his knees.

  Raef lowered his sword. He looked around again, and saw the four ships that had already slipped past Bluetooth’s line waiting out there on the broader water, the rest gathered inside the cove. Facing forward again he watched as Bluetooth’s army walked away off the cordon of their ships onto the far shore, and there circled into a crowd to talk.

  A dozen of them stayed behind on the ship opposite this one. Immediately the men on the ships started calling back and forth.

  “Hastein! Hastein! Is that you?”

  “It’s me, Snorri—still bigger than you are!”

  That brought laughter from both sides. Somebody behind Raef called, “Hey, do you have anything to eat over there?”

  “Think we’d feed you, you shiprats?” But a chunk of bread suddenly traced an arc through the sky from one dragon to the other. At once everybody began to yell.

  “How long do we wait?” Conn asked Sweyn, under the uproar.

  “Not much longer,” Sweyn said.

  “I say we run for it,” Raef said.

  Conn laughed, as if he had made a joke; he stowed his sword along a bench and sauntered up and down the ship, stretching his arms. Raef chewed his thumb. The gash on his forehead hurt, his feet were frozen, and he was hungry and nobody was feeding him; and he could see that they could get away, here, just by starting to row.

  Then Sweyn said, “Here they are again.”

  “That was quick,” Conn said.

  Raef gritted his teeth. Standing up, he watched Skull-Grim and a dozen men walking back up the ships, leaving most of the others behind. Raef heaved up a big sigh, relieved, and took his sword and thrust it into his belt.

  Conn said, “What?”

  “Not a one of them has a weapon drawn,” Raef said. He folded his arms over his chest. “I think this is over.”

  Sweyn stood up. “What do you mean?”

&
nbsp; Skull-Grim tramped toward them from ship to ship, until he stopped on one beside theirs, facing them. Under the thick black thatch of his hair his eyes glittered with a strange humor. His hands were loose at his sides. He said, “Sweyn Haraldsson, King Harald Bluetooth your father is dead.”

  “What?” Sweyn said. “When—How?” He glanced at Conn and Raef, his face rumpled with disbelief.

  “I’m not sure,” Skull-Grim said. “But he’s certainly dead. And we all here, after the way you’ve kept us going, yesterday and today, we all say that as far as we’re concerned you’re now the King of Denmark.”

  From the men behind him, then, there went up a yell.

  “King Sweyn Haraldsson!”

  Sweyn’s face cleared, shining bright as the sun. Conn let out a whoop and grabbed him around the legs and hoisted him up into the air. Sweyn flung both arms up in a wild salute, as if he could soar up into the sky; he was shouting, and Raef was shouting, too, but he couldn’t hear Sweyn and he couldn’t hear himself, for the roaring voices all around him.

  “King Sweyn Haraldsson! King Sweyn Haraldsson!”

  Let everybody else shout. Raef collected himself, trying to figure this out. But it had all come right, even if he couldn’t see how. He was glad he didn’t have to fight anymore, and now, of course, there would be plenty to eat. He stood back, letting the other men get in closer to Sweyn, lift him up, and carry him cheering toward the shore. Conn edged his way back beside him.

  “Now we can find Pap,” he said.

  Raef muttered in his throat, watching the celebration around

  Sweyn get farther away. “Yes.” They went down toward the dragonfly.

  On the command of the new King, they all put up their arms, and both the armies sailed back up the bay to the village where Bluetooth had made his headquarters. Sweyn took over the big hall in the village where Bluetooth had held court, and there sat, and a steady stream of the men from both armies came to him and took him for their King. Raef got quickly into looking for food. Conn hung around near Sweyn, in the big hall, where he had already seen a girl he liked. Skull-Grim came in and talked to Sweyn, and when he left, Sweyn called Conn over to him.

  “Your father is here.”

  “What?” Conn said. “That’s very good news to me. Where?”

  “Maybe not so good.” Sweyn gripped his arm. “They found him standing over my father Bluetooth’s body.”

  Conn jerked back, staring into Sweyn’s face. “No. I don’t believe it.”

  “It’s true.” Sweyn kept hold of him. “We have to do this the right way.”

  “My father didn’t kill the King,” Conn said. “Or if he did—”

  “Don’t do anything,” Sweyn said. “Whatever happened, we’ll hear it all out, we’ll do this right.”

  Conn stared at him, hot words on his tongue, and Sweyn met his eyes. They said nothing, but much passed between them. Abruptly Conn turned and walked out of the hall.

  He remembered how Sweyn had likely heard this, and he went through the village, looking for the berserker, Skull-Grim. He found him standing on the front step of a little wooden building, his arms crossed.

  “What do you want?” Skull-Grim said to him.

  “I’m looking for my father,” Conn said. “I’m thinking you may know where he is.” He looked up at the other man’s lumpy ugly face, sprinkled with dark beard like spines, into the small amused eyes, and his blood heated.

  “You are Conn Corbansson?”

  “I am.”

  The giant shifted, his back to the door, blocking the whole way in. “In fact I do have your father. I found him standing over the body of the King. The King that was.”

  Conn’s muscles sang; he said, “Let me in.”

  “I won’t. Go talk to the King that is.”

  Conn reached for his sword. “Let me in, or I’ll cut my way in through you.”

  Skull-Grim’s eyes gleamed. He never moved. He said, “I would much like to try you on, boy, but there’s a truce on. Your King’s truce.”

  Conn swallowed, remembering unwillingly what Sweyn had told him; it went hard against him to choose between his father and Sweyn. Then Raef jogged up to him.

  “What are you doing?” He cast a narrow glance at Skull- Grim. To Conn, he said, “Sweyn wants you. Palnatoki is finally here.”

  Skull-Grim grunted, his arms unfolding. Conn said, “Palnatoki.” He backed up, giving Skull-Grim a raw look. But Raef and Raef’s news drew him. “Isn’t he a little late? Where is he?”

  “His fleet is sailing in now. Sweyn wants to meet him on the shore.”

  “Very well, I’m coming,” Conn said. He turned to the giant, now standing in the doorway staring out toward the Limfjord’s flat blue waters. “I’m not finished.”

  “No, no,” said Skull-Grim. “Neither am I.” He turned and went back through the door. Conn walked on down to the shore, to greet Sweyn’s foster-father’s tardy coming on the ground.

  Late in the day Sweyn drank the arvel ale in the hall where Bluetooth had held court; he sat in the high seat, his captains and warriors all around him, and spoke Bluetooth’s name and drank deep. The mead and the ale went around, and they ate their fill of meat and bread, and the hall rang with their uproar. Over and again someone heaved up onto his feet and saluted Sweyn with his cup, calling him King, and many other fine things besides, and then they all cheered and beat their hands together and drank.

  Sweyn had Palnatoki beside him in the high seat, showing him all honor, but Conn sat on Sweyn’s other hand, and Raef beside Conn. Corban, sitting down one bench from them next to Skull-Grim, could not take his eyes from them. They seemed bigger, new men, utterly strange to him, as if the boys they had been when he saw them last had sloughed their skins. Conn had gold around his arms and on his chest and in his ears, and he looked in a perpetual high humor. Raef, beside him, hung his head and drank a lot, his hair milk white, shagging down below his shoulders; he wore no gold.

  In the high seat with Sweyn, Palnatoki was enjoying himself. He sat stroking his hands over the carved arms of the chair and smiling. Sweyn turned and held up a cup to him. Now he stood up to lead another round of hard drinking to the glory of Sweyn Haraldsson. Everybody bellowed; the hall fell into a hush while they drank. Skull-Grim turned toward Corban.

  “Those are your boys, hah?”

  “Yes,” Corban said.

  “They’re great fighters. Sweyn’s lucky.”

  “He’s lucky,” said somebody on the giant’s far side, “that we decided not to fight anymore. He wasn’t going to win. We’d have crushed them.”

  On Corban’s other shoulder, another voice sounded. “It came out all right. It was a wolf-war of a fight anyway, although not much gold in it. Skull-Grim, give us a poem about it.”

  Corban was still watching his boys, paying little heed to all this; he thought it was a joke, about the poem, but then Skull- Grim lifted his head, and his face kinked up, his eyes half closed. All the men around him hushed and waited. Amazed, Corban heard the big man speak skald’s words.

  “On the Limfjord loom—”

  He stopped. His wiry eyebrows jerked up and down and he muttered into his hand, and began again, his voice rumbling out, the phrases in their heavy measure like the thudding of great hammers.

  “Weird women wove the ring-gold’s worth on the loom of the Limfjord, now the harvest of the one-handed husbandman brings riches for ravens;

  “Wine of wounds waters the ash-tree; smith’s steel smokes with warm man-mead. The storm-father stalks us, seizing his own.

  “When Rig’s spawn takes the swan’s road home, Egil’s stoneheaded son

  “Must seek Mimir’s meal among the mighty; or maybe make a wolf’s way from now on.”

  Corban understood almost none of it, but the heavy thunder of the words carried him. Around him the other men listened with their heads cocked, their faces rapt. When Skull-Grim was done none of the listeners spoke, although all around them the hall buzzed and roare
d with other talk. Instead they nodded, solemn as priests, their eyes worshipful on Skull-Grim.

  Then the man beside Corban said, “Well, it’s not that bad, is it? Sweyn will take us all, for sure.”

  Skull-Grim nodded his head toward the high seat. “It seems to me Rig’s spawn’s spawn already has his berserker.”

  Somebody else, under his breath, said, “Is he Bluetooth’s son?”

  “He is now,” said Skull-Grim. “And the time’s come to prove it.” He laid his great knobby-boned hands on the table and turned to Corban. “Do you have that thing I gave you, back when the King died?”

  Corban started, his mind empty; then he remembered the broken arrow. “Yes.”

  “Then be ready.” Skull-Grim stood up. “King Sweyn Haraldsson!”

  The clamor hushed a little. Up there in the high seat, Sweyn lifted his head. The light shone on his red-gold hair. Beside him Palnatoki turned and held out his ale-horn to a servant m the shadows behind him.

  Sweyn said, “Speak, Skull-Grim, you’ve earned it. Although I never thought to hear the name Peacemaker applied to you.” At the sound of his voice the whole room fell quiet, listening.

  Skull-Grim rumbled, amused. He looked up and down the hall. “Not now, either. There is the matter of the death of the old King.”

  The hall hushed, all at once, very quiet. Up by the high seat Conn started to his feet, and Corban realized he had heard something of the matter. Sweyn put his hand out and held him down. “Tell us what you know, then.”

  Skull-Grim said, “I found him dead, and this man standing over him.” He tapped Corban on the shoulder.

  All around the room a murmur of voices rose. Corban stood up where he was, drawing every gaze to him. He felt naked under their eyes. Some stood up, to see him better, and he heard his name whispered all around him. He had the piece of the arrow in his hand, although he wondered what use it would be. Up there on the high seat, Sweyn was watching him steadily, frowning, and now he got to his feet.